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1000 points for learning at my local club:

HQ:
Sorcerer
- Lv.2
-MoS
100 points

Troops:
Cultist squad (9 cultists + 1 champion) x4
-Heavy Stubber
220 points (55 per squad)

Fast Attack:
Heldrake x2
-Baleflamer
340 points (170 each)

Heavy Support:
Havocs (4 havocs + 1 champ) x2
-4 lascannons
-MoN
340 points (170 per squad)

Tactics:
Havocs open up enemy transports and tanks with 8 lascannons. Heldrakes then baleflamer what ever pours out of them ( inspired by Natfka's new article). Perhaps taking out any flyers the opponent has first. While he's distracted by 'ooh, big scary/ugly dragons!' I'll shuffle my cultisits up to the objectives, whilst shielding the sorcerer.

The reason for the 4 cultist squads instead of 2 big ones is that I get more champions to soak up challenges with, leaving my sorcerer free from harm.

Any criticisms, tips or advice?

Anyone?

Why MoS on the sorcerer? Why Lv 2 and not 3?
The two first powers from slaanesh seem ill placed on the list. S/T/I buff when you only have cultists that can engage in melee? Bonus to sonic weaponry when you do not have any? (Although the second can be useful for the BS penalty)

Your troops are... well.. frail. You got 40 guardsman in there, with worse weapons, armor and LD. 6th edition has 5 out of 6 missions that require troops to be won.

I personally dislike helldrakes. I certainly think two of them are too much at 1k points when you don't have a decent troop selection.

Your Havocs are way expensive. For the same price you could get 3x autocannon Havocs. Or AC/Lascannon predators. Both cases give you more shots distribute through more units.

Your main problems are 2:

1) Your scoring is frail
2) You have little that can kill infantary. 2 Baleflamers, and 4 stubbers. Anything that is mildly resilient will not be phased by it.

Wyrmnax wrote:

I personally dislike helldrakes.

Why?

Hell drakes are fine but they aren't the Superior Anti-Air Flyer they were advertised to be. One S7 hit isn't that appealing compared to other flyers. With bale flamers though they are quite potent at wiping marines off the board.

I would personally find some points and increase the size of the cultist squads. I assume you aren't using CSMs for a reason so you need more durable scoring units.

Autocannons are just about as good at popping rhinos as lascannons but are useless against LRs. I don't know what your local meta is.

I dislike helldrakes because i think they are too expensive for what they bring.

They are not good anti-flyers. With the cannon, they have about the same anti-air firepower of one of the necron transports - and cost almost double.

The baleflamer makes it good at killing marines out in the open. being a flyer that is not capable of descending into hover mode, his manuevrability is rough - he can only take 90" turns, it is possible to either overshoot the oponent, or turn around and find that you dont have anything to shoot at.

As far as survivability goes, it is decent. He is a AV 12, has a 5++. But that is not awesome absurdly survivable. Especially because of his limitation in movement path because of no-hover, it isnt too hard to predict where you need to be to get back shots.

All in all, i think they are obviously inferior to necron trasports, for example. And obviously, compare badly to a vendetta, but thats a given - vendetta is absurdly underpriced.

And i do think that the Night Scythes are decently priced for what they bring. The problem with the necron flying circus is simply that they can buy them as dedicated transports, but they would be fine in a fast attack slot, for example.

Helldrakes can in fact hover so they are decent for anti infanty and will punish anyone that bunches up in that cover they think they are safe in. they are expensive tho and with the hades cannon they are no where near worth their points.

as for you havocs i would take out 1 of the lascannon havoc squads free up some points and add in 2x 4 autocannon havocs.

 Kendowned wrote:
Helldrakes can in fact hover so they are decent for anti infanty and will punish anyone that bunches up in that cover they think they are safe in. they are expensive tho and with the hades cannon they are no where near worth their points.

as for you havocs i would take out 1 of the lascannon havoc squads free up some points and add in 2x 4 autocannon havocs.

And here i go again, not reading the unit type. Stand corrected, however i still keep my view that it is too expensive of a unit.

Thanks for the replies!

So, from what I gathered, I need to:
- Beef up the troops
- Re-evaluate MoS on Sorc
- Take the Sorc up to Lv.3
- Maybe lose a Heldrake (perhaps both)
- Drop a squad of Lascannon Havocs for Autocannon ones

Questions:
1. Would it be better to add more cultists or use my free points on Marines/ mix of both
2. MoN is looking more appealing for my Sorcerer. Any opinions on that?
3. Would an ADL be a good investment in a list like this?

I'm not 100% sure on my meta but from the few games I've seen it appears to be Necrons, MEQ, IG and Orks.

CrabSlap, I assume that you are somewhat new to wh40k, now just chaos, is this correct? My answer reflects this, so if I am being too basic, please feel free to tell me.

Both troop choices have good sides and bad sides.

Cultists are very cheap. They are also very brittle, and their ld sucks badly. They do have a tendency to take a lot of ld tests because it is easy to loose models, and they are not good at passing those tests. So they might run off from a objective.

Also, offensively, cultists are... well... null. You have to pay extra to have lasguns, and lasguns aren't very effective. On melee, they will only ever defeat... tau.

CSM are much more resilient. Their ld is not THAT much better, but they do tend to take much less casualities, so its harder to force those ld tests in the first place.

They are much better offensively, bolters are a decent weapon and they do have the option to gear up for CC. However, they are MUCH more expensive.

I would say you have to test them both, and see what you need. Get a feel for their strong points and weak points. You will probably end up with a mix of both, but how many and how you use them will need some practice.

As for your sorcerer, its not just reevaluating the MoS, it is reevaluating why are you taking a sorcerer. Do you want him to buff you units, debuff your enemy units, be firing witchfire? Each of those are valid reasons to take a sorcerer, and each of those can be acomplished differently by a different discipline. You might find out that you want all your powers from one of the basic disciplines, for example. Think on how you want to use the sorcerer first, then think about what mark and other gear help him in that situation.

Aegis Defense is... well, there are arguments on both ways. On one side, it is great to have 4+ cover, especially if you can put a objective in and have a scoring unit (cultists) that can afford to go to ground when shot at, and make what would be a easy to kill unit into something really hard to shift. On the other hand, it is expensive for something that is completely immobile.

My suggestion, if you are new to 40k, is to play a few games proxying everything. So you can get a feel for how the game plays, and how the different aspects of the army behave when under pressure, so you can try to find some things you like before sticking a lot of $ in it. I still do the same all the time when I am trying some sort of new unit - play quite a few games with it as a proxy and once im happy with the changes only then i go spend cash on it. Or when you see a model that is so freaking awsum! gotta have it! now!

keep 1 drake

scrap cult if you want other troops, if you need troops then use them but no upgrades

put the psyker in a squad of somekind to keep him alive ( mabye tzeech idk )

your 2 havocs will do alot of damage to them keep them alive and mabye a agues def line will help them

For the HQ a Chaos Sorcerer is great, but deep down it's all a matter of personal reference. As long as it's not too expensive since it's a 1000 pts list.
A level 2 Sorceror is good enough for this list, don't put too many points on him, you will need it for the troops. The Slaanesh powers are good but not that great, the +1 initiative is nice too but not needed, you could save your points by not giving him a mark and generating your powers form the BRB.

The Chaos Lord could be a good HQ option too, with a power weapon he's quite cheap and he have great stats.

Wyrmnax point is valid, you should think about what you want for your HQ, what you want it to accomplish. A Sorcerer is a specialised tool, you need to know how to use it. A Chaos Lord on the other hand is a swiss knife... and it's great in cc.

I would also recommend (like everyone) to seriously reconsider your troop choices.
4 squads of cultist won't cut it, They have a poor Ld and if they get into close combat they will die by the scores and flee... their initiative being so low will probably mean that they will be destroyed by a sweeping advance. Numbers will not mean anything in that case and they are only 10 in each squad.

A CSM squad will do the job a lot better than your cultist (even if they are only 5) and it will be a lot more efficient and survive a lot better on the battlefield. That 3+ armour save vs the 6+ armour save of the Cultist will make a world of difference...

Heldrake with Baleflamer are great anti-troops. The Chaos player I play against just bought one and he say they're great... well I've been on the other end of the baleflamer and I agree, they make great anti-anything and they are really hard to shoot at. 2 might be overkill for such a small gam tho, but I would definitly take one... that template is really something... it makes me think of the IG Hellhound. I will get one for my Chaos army for sure.

For the Heavy support I would take 2 squads with 3 lascannons each and drop the MoN. The 2 CSM's that are not lascannons will be your "spare wounds", put them in front of the other 2. 4 lascannons are a little overkill in an havoc squad.

So here's the list I would recommand based on your initial list.

HQ:
Sorcerer
Level 2
85 points

Troops:
Chaos Space Marine squad
8 CSM w/ 1 meltagun & ccw
Champion w/ power fist
165 pts
Rhino
35 pts

Chaos Space Marine squad
8 CSM w/ 1 meltagun & ccw
Champion w/ power weapon
155 pts
Rhino
35 pts

Chaos Space Marine squad
5 CSM w/ 1 plasma gun
90 pts

Fast Attack:
Heldrake
Baleflamer
170 points

Heavy Support:
Havocs squad
5 CSM w/ 3 lascannons
135 pts

Havocs squad
5 CSM w/ 3 lascannons
135 pts

Total = 997 pts

Not too far from your original list except for the troops.

As for your questions:
1. Would it be better to add more cultists or use my free points on Marines/ mix of both
Use Chaos Marines only, in a game this size you will need their strength
2. MoN is looking more appealing for my Sorcerer. Any opinions on that?
You should not take a mark on your Sorcerer.
3. Would an ADL be a good investment in a list like this?
An ADL would not be a good investment. Your Heldrake will take care of any flyer. If it's a bunker you need it will be really static and easily avoidable. I don't recommend it.

list is good but no your heldrake cannot take on armor 12 vehicals that easy, and with his crap shot with the auto cannons its not likely that he will do the job so use it for light vehical poping and for burning infantry

Alright, been thinking about it quite a bit and I have a better idea of how the list should look.

CrabSlap, I assume that you are somewhat new to wh40k, now just chaos, is this correct?

I am somewhat of a noob although I have a basic understanding.

I'm definitely ditching cultists for Marines. Makes so much more sense.
I was thinking 2 squads of 10 marines, both with 2 plasma guns (or maybe one squad with 2 meltas) and Rhinos.

Looks like this:
- 10 marines
- 2 Plasma guns
- Icon of Vengeance (Fearless)
- Rhino
225 points

its not just reevaluating the MoS, it is reevaluating why are you taking a sorcerer

This got me thinking most of all. At 1000 points, is a psyker even that useful?
I'm now leaning more towards a lord...:

Lord
- MoK
- Juggernaut
- Black Mace
155pts
(and maybe a bubble wrap unit of cultists just because I can't resist it )

Any more thoughts?

Thanks to everyone else regarding Havocs. More dakka from 3-4 autocannons seems like a good idea and fun!